President Obama Signs Final Stimulus Package into Law

President Barack Obama signed into law Tuesday, February 17, the final stimulus package, officially known as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, approved by Congress. The final amount totaled $787 billion. The controversial measure will now go into the channels of government for distribution.

Introducing the President was Blake Jones, CEO of Namaste Solar Electric, the company that installed the solar panels on the Colorado governor's mansion. According to the New York Times, companies like Namaste Solar will be big beneficiaries of the stimulus package, which was designed to push greener, renewable energy sources. Part of the package includes weatherization and energy efficiency projects totally in the billions of dollars, including $6 billion in energy grants for state and local governments.

Even though there exists great anticipation for the final stimulus package to be implemented, not everyone was pleased with the final details signed into law in Denver. Only three Republican senators voted for the measure. Not one Republican representative voted for it. As much as President Obama attempted to include Republican legislators, the more it seemed his entreaties fell upon deaf ears. Some, like Senators John McCain (AZ) and Lindsey Graham (SC), said that the final stimulus package wasn't a bipartisan effort at all.

Alaska Governor Sarah Palin told Fox News' Greta van Susteren on "On The Record" that she hoped that the president would veto the legislation so that it would delay everything long enough for all the legislators to read the entire measure.

Governor Mark Sanford of South Carolina called for more tax cuts and better trade agreements, condemning the final stimulus package as "mortgaging our children's future."

Paul Begala, a Democratic strategist, answered Sanford's histrionics with: After all, if you think all that federal spending is damaging, there are easy ways to reduce it: Don't take federal money."After all, if you think all that federal spending is damaging, there are easy ways to reduce it: Don't take federal money." Begala explains that South Carolina has been a ward of the federal government for years, so Sanford actually has no credibility with such an approach.

Palin, however, had a point. The final stimulus package was 1,075 pages long in printed format. (CNN's Lou Dobbs kept picking up the huge printed mass and dropping on his desk during one broadcast.) There is no way any of our legislators read that massive tome (except maybe Dennis Kucinich; remember: He was one of only two or three people who read that insidiously worded Patriot Act that would haunt anyone who adheres to the tenets of the Constitution). It would have behooved our legislators to have delegated sections of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to staff members to read (to look for discrepancies and problems) and to have read as much of it as they possibly could themselves before the final vote.

Instead, what the American public got was a bunch of posturing fools either touting the legislation (without knowing much about it) or universally denying it merits (without knowing much about it). We even got ridiculous assertions from Republican representative Steve King of Iowa about the "Pelosi pet mouse project" that was supposed to cost the American public $30 million. No such piece of legislation was in the final stimulus package, or any other package that anyone can find.

No one read it, but some felt the need to extemporize...

And no one knows if the final stimulus package signed by President Obama will work to stabilize the failing American economy. But doing nothing is - doing nothing. At least the stimulus package is a proactive step.

Implementation is next. Hopefully, so is recovery...

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NYTimes.com
FoxNews.com
Associated Content
"Lou Dobbs Tonight," CNN Television
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